


Two Out of Four Ain't Bad

by ughineedcoffee



Series: The Runt of the Litter [18]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cute, Family, Fluff, Gen, Parental Dean Winchester, Pre-Series Supernatural, Protective Dean Winchester, Winchester Sister, baby sister, little sister - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:14:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29066412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ughineedcoffee/pseuds/ughineedcoffee
Summary: Sam's been gone to Stanford for nearly two years now, and John is, as always, out hunting. So it's just Dean and his four-year-old sister as it often is these days. But maybe that's not so bad.
Series: The Runt of the Litter [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2112966
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	Two Out of Four Ain't Bad

"What're you doin' now?" Anna asked, sidling up closer to her older brother, dragging her stuffed frog on the floor behind her.

Dean closed his eyes for a second then opened them again but didn't look down at his five-year-old sister, just stared at the computer he was researching on. "Who wants to know?" He asked, his fingers dancing over the keyboard as he changed the keywords in his search in hopes of finding different results.

Anna was now standing right up against his leg next to his chair, staring up at him with her big green eyes. She held up her stuffed frog and blamed him. "Halloween," she told her brother. "He been askin' nonstop," she said dramatically as if the frog had been annoying the crap out of her.

Dean smirked, "Well, you tell him that I'm still doing research. Just like I was when you got curious less than two minutes ago."

Anna sighed and dropped to her knees, crawling underneath the library table where Dean was working. A foot suddenly landed directly in her path. "No running off, rugrat," her twenty-four-year-old brother's voice drifted from above her.

Anna grinned despite having been stopped from her journey. "You sound like da wizard of oz," she informed her brother through a giggle as she poked her head back out from underneath the table to look up at him.

"Oh, do I?" Dean challenged, finally looking down at his sister with a smile on his face. Her giggle was just too damn cute. "Well, who are you then?" He asked, leaning down in his chair to pick her up and settle her on his lap, dropping a kiss on her forehead. "Dorothy?"

"No," Anna said as if Dean was being absolutely ridiculous even though she was the one that started this. "I'm Toto," she exclaimed as if it were obvious.

Dean shook his head. "You don't have enough hair to be Toto," he said, sounding like he was sympathetic to her troubles.

Anna pouted. "But I wanna be Toto," she said sadly.

"No, you don't. Sorry to break it to you, shorty. But no dogs in the Impala. Besides, I like you better human," he told her, tapping her nose with his index finger.

"How come you don' like dogs, Dean-o?" Anna asked, standing on his lap and fisting his flannel shirt to steady herself. "They're super awesome and they love everyone," she argued.

"They also pee wherever they want, shed fur everywhere, and bark in the middle of the night," Dean pointed out.

Anna huffed, her hair blowing in different directions as she tired of the conversation quickly. "I'm bored. Can we be done now?"

Dean rose an eyebrow at her. "Anna, you know I have to get this research done for Dad. After that, we'll go get some dinner and head back to the motel," he promised.

Anna nodded, feeling extremely bored but knowing better than to say something more about it. She turned around so she was facing the computer and sat on Dean's knee, hugging Halloween against her chest and staring blankly at the screen. "Can I help?" She asked even though she knew the answer would be no.

She heard Dean chuckle from above her head. "Probably not, honey," he told her. Dean wrapped one arm around his sister's waist and pulled her back further onto his lap so she wouldn't fall forward and get hurt or jump down and run off. "Just give me another ten minutes, I'm pretty close here."

Anna figured it would be best just to do what he said so he could finish and they could get out of this dump. She wondered why libraries were so boring. Books were awesome. They were like the key to everything in the universe that was cool or scary or sad or happy. And yet every time she ever went to one of the buildings that was absolutely full of books...? She got bored out of her mind. Of course, she was always supposed to stay right by her brother-- or her father, if he was there, which wasn't often-- and therefore didn't get the chance to look at many books. But, still. She just felt like there needed to be constant entertainment in a library.

The five-year-old looked around the room they were in, thinking about her current predicament. If their father were here then Dean probably would've been charged only with the task of watching Anna and therefore he would be playing with her instead of researching. But John was not present. He was working a case a few states away and the last time she'd seen him, he'd been having her do training exercises, teaching her the basics of fighting with her fists and making her recite ways to kill monsters to make sure she had the facts down.

"How do you kill a werewolf, Anna?"

"Silver to the heart."

"And a shapeshifter?"

"Same thing but the head works too"

"Say it out. Don't take shortcuts," he'd ordered. "Shortcuts get people killed."

Anna had shivered at the thought of getting anyone killed and tried again. "You kill a shapeshifter with silver to the head or the heart."

"Good girl," John had praised gruffly. "Wendigo?"

"You gotta burn it," Anna had answered, a spark of interest in her eyes at the thought of torching a wendigo. "Flares work but if you don't got one, you can get cer-ative."

John had smiled at her. "Alright, go find Dean, Kiddo," he'd ordered. And she'd listened, going off in search of her brother in the library.

"All set, runt," Dean suddenly said from above her, snapping her out of her reverie. He clicked on a few more things, closing internet browsers and deleting evidence that he'd been here out of habit.

"For real?" Anna asked excitedly.

"Yeah, for real," Dean enthused back. He stood up, placing his little sister on her feet on the floor and reaching out to take her hand. "Let's head out."

"Awesome," she pulled on her older brother's hand, heading quickly for the door. "Let's get out of this dump."

Dean met the eyes of the elderly librarian nearby who was looking at his sister in disapprovement at her statement. "She didn't mean that," he assured quietly, giving the lady a polite smile. He reached down and scooped up his little sister, throwing her over his shoulder. Listening to her giggle, Dean couldn't help but smile. "You're pretty cute, you know that?" He told Anna, tickling her side where she lay over his shoulder still, making her laugh even harder.

"St-stop," Anna gasped, shoving her brother's hands away breathlessly. "It tickles."

"That's the point," Dean smiled as they made it out of the library. He pulled his sister off his shoulder and settled her on the ground in front of him, ruffling her long blonde curls before taking her by the hand and heading down the sidewalk past all the cars that'd been parallel parked. "You remember where we parked the car, munchkin?"

"Uh-huh," Anna responded. "I always 'member th'important stuff, Dean."

"Oh yeah," Dean challenged, heading in the direction where he already knew the car was. "Then when's my birthday?"

Anna skipped along beside him, the movement making her tug on his hand. "Janny-ary twenty fourth," she told him. And she was right, but, boy, had she hacked the word January to pieces.

"It's January," Dean corrected, having winced at the pronunciation she'd come up with. "But you're right, so I guess you do remember the important stuff."

"Duh," Anna shot back. They paused in front of a crosswalk and Dean reached down to pull his sister into his arms. "Hey," Anna protested, pushing against her brother's shoulder irritably. "That was rude. I was-"

"Oh, be quiet," Dean told her as he rolled his eyes. "It's just 'till we cross the street, runt."

Anna crossed her arms but settled in Dean's arms. "Whatever," she huffed.

"You're gonna be amazing as a teenager," Dean quipped as they made it across the street and he set his sister back on her feet next to him. This time, she moved her hand away when he moved to take it, obviously holding a grudge over the incident. "Hand, anklebiter," he ordered, dropping his voice low so she'd know he wasn't kidding around.

Anna took a step away from him instead and Dean realized suddenly that he'd totally forgotten to make her take a nap today. And it was after 4pm. That would explain her restless behavior in the library and her irritable behavior right now, but he couldn't exactly afford to let her ignore all the rules just because she was tired and cranky. John had always made his boys stay right by his side whenever in public when they were kids and it was important to Dean to do the same with Anna. It was for safety.

"Anna," he snapped, making it clear to her that he wasn't playing and she needed to come back and take his hand. The car was just down the sidewalk and all he wanted to do was go to it so they could go get some dinner-- probably in a drive-thru since Anna wasn't in a good enough mood for them to eat in a diner-- and then go back to the motel and get his sister to bed early so she wouldn't be grumpy as hell tomorrow.

"Leave me alone," Anna snapped back, moving farther away from her brother and now facing in a totally different direction.

Dean closed his eyes for a fraction of a second in frustration, took a deep breath and then took three long strides forward and scooped his sister up into his arms. He spoke lowly in her ear so she'd know he was dead serious. "Knock it off, Anna," he ordered.

The little girl's face crumpled into a pout and for a second, Dean thought she would cry. But, she didn't. She started squirming to get out of his arms. "Dean," she whined, still pushing away. "Put me down."

Dean bit his lip in frustration, trying desperately not to yell at his little sister as he headed to the car nearby and held on tight to her. He knew that if he gave her the leeway, she'd run off and that was not something he wanted to face today. "Stop, shorty," he requested. They got to the car, Anna still whining and trying to get away from her older brother. Dean opened the back door and moved to put his sister on the seat, but she suddenly was clinging to him instead of fighting against him.

"No," she argued, wrapping her legs around his waist to keep him from placing her on the seat. Dean attempted to pry her arms from around his neck to get her in the seat so they could go. "No," Anna cried, growing increasingly agitated by the second. "No! Dean, No!"

"What do you want from me, Anna?" Dean finally asked in anger, his patience diminished.

Anna was clearly about ready to start crying. "I wan-wanna sit in the front," Anna gasped.

Dean could see she was getting herself all worked up and wanted very badly to avoid a meltdown. "Okay, okay," he agreed, standing back up and shutting the back door. "It's ok. It's ok. You can sit in the front, honey. I swear. Just calm down, ok? Take a deep breath or something before you keel over."

Anna sniffled, her eyes watery but no tears spilled over. Crisis averted. "K-kay," the five-year-old sniffled again, still clutching tightly to her brother's flannel.

Dean sighed in a mixture of relief and exhaustion. Yeah, the attitude thing was definitely a result of her missed nap. "Remind me never to compromise your sleeping habits again, ok?" He requested of his little sister.

She, obviously, had no clue what he was talking about, but the way she said, "ok," in a small voice anyway was enough to make Dean smile despite everything.

"Alright, you want dinner?" He asked as he slid into the driver's side of the car and set his sister on the bench seat next to him, immediately reaching over to help her buckle her seatbelt and fix the strap on her pink corduroy overalls which had fallen off her shoulder. "I'm starving."

Anna, who'd been holding her stuffed frog tightly in one hand through everything, leaned down to whisper in Halloween's "ear" and then sat up straight again while Dean started the car. "Yeah, we're also starving," She told her brother seriously.

Dean smiled, glad to see that things were looking up in terms of Anna's mood. "Alright, let's hit up the nearest drive-thru," the older brother suggested, pulling carefully away from the curb after checking the mirrors. "Whatcha hungry for, tater tot?"

Anna wrinkled her nose at the nickname. "Dean, I am not a tater tot," she announced, over pronouncing her t's in a way that made Dean smirk, and he hid it behind his shoulder. "A tater tot comes from a 'tato and I did not come from a 'tato."

Dean grinned over at his little sister briefly before looking back at the road. God, what would he do without the little nut to keep him company. Probably die of both boredom and loneliness. "I don't know," he teased, reaching over to tap her nose with his index finger while stopped at a stop sign. "Ya had me fooled."

Anna crossed her arms and pouted. "I am not from a 'tato," she repeated stubbornly. "And 'sides, you can't go tellin' people that I'm a tater tot or else someone's gonna try ta eat me," she stressed, sounding so legitimately concerned about the possibility that Dean couldn't help but laugh when she continued by saying. "Tater tots are very delicious." Anna looked upset at Dean's amusement. "It ain't funny, Dean. I don't wanna get eaten. I thought you loved me," she cried, seeming very concerned by now.

Dean stopped laughing and reached over to put a hand on her head just as he spotted a fast food restaurant up ahead. "Alright, calm down, anklebiter. I know you're not a tater tot. No one's gonna eat you."

"And you do love me?" Anna checked, looking at her older brother with wide green puppy dog eyes.

Dean laughed and ruffled her hair before moving his hand back to the wheel and turning into the restaurant parking lot, heading for the drive-thru. "Yes," he asserted. "I do love you. Even if you're a little nut."

Anna eyed Dean in a way that told him she wasn't too impressed with that nickname either, but she didn't say anything. She just yawned and hugged Halloween closer to her chest.

There was only one car ahead of them in line and they were currently ordering their food. "What'll you have, rugrat?" Dean asked his sister, not unaware of her sleepy behavior but still wanting to get some food in her before she crashed.

Anna sat up straighter, straining against her seatbelt to see the menu options. "What do they got?" She asked her brother. "Is there onion rings?"

Dean shook his head in exasperation. "Onion rings are not a meal, Anna," he informed his little sister. "If you're gonna get those, you gotta get a sandwich or something with 'em."

Anna wrinkled her nose but relented, too tired to argue as she rubbed at her eyes with her fists. "Whatever," she agreed.

"Alright, you want grilled cheese, or what?"

Anna shrugged, feeling less and less interested in food now that she was relaxed and sleepy. "That one, I guess," she told her brother.

Dean looked over at his sister, about to comment on her tiredness, but the car in front of them pulled ahead. He pulled up to the speaker and the tinny voice from inside the restaurant came through, asking for their order.

"Hey, can I get the double bacon cheeseburger with fries and a coke, and a grilled cheese sandwich with onion rings and some oj," he requested.

The display screen soon filled with his order. The voice carrying through the speaker recited it back to him and he confirmed that it was right before the cashier told him his total and he pulled ahead to the next window.

Dean reached into his back pocket for his wallet and pulled out a twenty, realizing that sometime while he was ordering, his baby sister had fallen asleep and was beginning to tilt towards him. He winced at his own screw-up for what had to be at least the fifth time since he'd first realized that he'd forgone his sister's naptime.

"$11.52," the kid at the register stated, leaning out the window with a hand out for the cash.

Dean dropped the twenty into the kid's hand and drove forward without waiting for his change. The people in front of them were just getting their food so it took a minute for them to get a chance to pull forward, then they waited at the pickup window for a good ten minutes before their food came.

Accepting their meal from the cashier, Dean placed the bags of food on the seat between him and his little sister, driving for the motel, which was only a few minutes away.

Pulling into the spot right in front of their room, Dean turned the car off and opened his door, going around the car to the passenger side. He opened that door and leaned in, unbuckling his sister's seatbelt and lifting her into his arms to carry her inside. He snagged their food and drinks then turned to head inside, Anna nestled into the crook of one arm while he balanced all the food in the other. He closed the car door with his foot, then managed to hold two fast food bags with his teeth while balancing the drinks near his shoulder and reaching back into his pocket to retrieve the room key he'd put there earlier.

He got the key in the lock and— with difficulty— turned the knob enough to push the door open and go inside, once again closing it with his foot. Dean attempted to call his sister's name to start the process of waking her up but his words came out muffled as he still had the bags in his mouth. He dropped the room key on the small table a few feet from the door and then leaned down enough to set the drinks and food down. He was relieved to just have Anna to worry about, but knew waking her up and getting her to eat when she was this tired would be an adventure of the not-so-great variety. And he knew that getting her to go back to sleep once he'd woken her up enough to eat and get ready for bed would be just as eventful despite how tired she obviously was. The joys of caring for a five-year-old.

Dean steeled himself and then gently started nudging his sister awake, "Anna. Anna, wake up. Come on, rugrat. You have onion rings, remember? The most unnatural favorite food for a five-year old to have?"

Anna stirred, rubbing at her eyes and wrinkling her nose as she turned further into her brother's shoulder and settled again instead of waking all the way up and straightening.

"Anna," Dean shrugged her head off of his shoulder, careful not to hit her in the face with his shoulder. "Hey. Wake up, munchkin. You need to eat something."

Anna finally opened her eyes and squinted at her brother, mumbling something unintelligible.

"What?" Dean asked.

"I said," Anna began grouchily. "Stupid big brothers don't know when to just let their sister sleep," she told Dean with a vicious glare.

Dean took a deep breath as he walked over to the table and set his sister into a chair. This was going to be worse than he'd anticipated if she was already grumpy. "Listen, tiny," he began with just enough authority in his tone to make her understand that he wasn't joking right now. "You haven't eaten since breakfast. I know you're hungry. So, eat at least half your food and drink your juice. Then, you can go back to bed."

Anna pouted but reached for the bag in front of her, looking inside it to see her onion rings on top. She pulled out the onion rings and put them on the table in front of her while Dean sat down next to her and pulled his own bag over. When he noticed that Anna hadn't made a move to reach back into the bag for her sandwich, he took it out for her and pulled away the onion rings that she was happily munching on to put the sandwich in their place.

"Hey," Anna complained, leaned forward to reach her onion rings.

Dean pointed at her grilled cheese, which had been cut into halves, while snacking on a couple of his french fries, "You eat one of those triangles and then you can go for the onion rings."

The little girl pouted again but reached for her sandwich nonetheless. She pulled apart her triangle into little pieces, watching the cheese stretch every which way. "Where's Halloween, Dean," she asked, still not having eaten a single bite of her sandwich.

Dean thought for a second. She'd been holding onto the stuffed frog when he picked her up to carry her inside, so... Oh, yeah. He'd left it in the car because he figured Anna would just be eating and sleeping, then they had to leave in the morning for a case Dad wanted Dean on. "He's in the car." He wanted to tell her that she didn't need the stuffed animal to eat anyway, but she would probably start freaking out and go into the kind of righteous rant that only a five-year-old can.

Anna seemed very distressed by this statement. "Wh-what. You left him there by himself?" She looked absolutely horrified and Dean started to feel kind of guilty but then rolled his eyes at himself internally and listened to his baby sister as she continued. "He don't like to be alone, Dean. He's gonna miss me in there. I gotta go get him." She turned and hopped off her chair, running for the motel room door.

But Dean caught up to her easily and wrapped an arm around her waist to lift her off the ground. "Not so fast, munchkin," he told her, settling her on his hip. "You know better than that," he scolded lightly and opened their room door. He walked to the car just a yard or two away and opened the passenger door, setting his sister on the seat. She scrambled to grab her stuffed frog and then turned around and latched her arms around Dean's neck so he could pick her up again. "All set, rugrat?" Dean asked, closing the car door again.

"Uh-huh," Anna answered, clearly more awake now. "Get a move on, dude. I'm starving," she demanded, pointing back to their room.

Dean obeyed, bringing his sister inside and setting her on the floor, ushering her to the table again. "Chow down," he told her, sitting next to her and picking up his burger. He was grateful to find that it wasn't totally cold.

Anna set Halloween down on the table next to her and picked up one of the small pieces of her sandwich that she'd ripped off earlier, popping it into her mouth and washing it down with some OJ. She leaned back in her chair and continued eating her sandwich piece by piece until one half of it was gone. Knowing that she'd fulfilled her sandwich eating obligations, she leaned into her brother's space and demanded, "Where's the good part?"

Dean hid his smile at her forwardness and reached behind the food bags on the table to give her the onion rings. "You know, you've gotta be the only five-year-old on the planet whose favorite food is onion rings."

"I don't care," Anna responded distractedly as she dug into the greasy food.

She couldn't finish the serving even though she loved the food, so Dean figured he could save them and give them to her tomorrow along with the other half of her sandwich. There was a microwave in the kitchenette in their room, so he put the food in there and turned to his little sister, "Alright, pajamas and teeth, rugrat."

Anna frowned up at her brother and got off her chair to walk over to him. "It ain't that late, though."

Dean rose an eyebrow at her and crouched down to her level, brushing some of her blonde curls off her forehead. "Yeah, but someone missed their nap today and she'll be pretty damn grumpy in the morning if she doesn't catch up on sleep," he explained.

Anna crossed her arms, Halloween still dangling from one hand as she looked stubbornly at her brother. "Only babies need naps," she informed him. "And I'm not a baby."

"So you tell me every day," Dean responded, standing back up and going over to their duffels between the beds. "And yet," he bent over to grab a pair of pajamas out of Anna's duffel. "You nap every day anyway. And you're better off for it. Weird how that works, isn't it?" He teased with a smile. He scooped his sister off her feet and placed her on the bed, handing her the pajamas he'd grabbed. They were footies, her favorite pair.

"Dean," Anna started loudly. "I am not going to bed right now."

Dean looked at her with both eyebrows raised and folded his arms across his chest. "Anna-"

"No," the five-year-old shouted back. And Dean had an idea on how to do this without getting into any screaming matches.

"Ok," he relented, hands raised in surrender. "Ok. Just change and brush your teeth so you don't have to do it later, ok?"

Anna looked suspicious at the sudden defeat Dean was displaying but went to the bathroom with her pjs nonetheless. About six minutes later, she reemerged with her Mickey Mouse footie pajamas on and Halloween clutched tightly to her chest. "What're we gonna do?" She asked her brother, scurrying over to his side where he was now wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, having changed while she was in the bathroom.

"You wanna watch something?" Dean asked his little sister, arms outstretched towards her in an offer to pick her up. Anna accepted, skipping forward and placing one hand and one frog-holding fist onto Dean's forearms as he lifted her carefully into his arms. He dropped a quick kiss onto her forehead and then sat down on the nearest bed and picked up the remote from the nightstand. "Anything in mind?"

"John Wayne?" Anna suggested seriously, and Dean felt pretty proud of himself for having taught her well.

"Stagecoach?" he offered. I've got the dvd in my bag and there's a player.

"Ok," Anna agreed.

Five minutes later, the movie was going and Anna was rubbing her eyes, blinking stubbornly to keep awake. Another fifteen minutes later, Anna was sleeping soundly on her brother's chest and Dean had draped a flannel from his duffel over her as a blanket, hugging her to him and enjoying the film. Stagecoach was a classic, after all. It wasn't the kind of movie that you could put into a dvd player and then just erase all notion of watching.

When the movie ended an hour and a half later, he carefully placed his sleeping sister in her own bed and covered her up.

***

Dean woke up to something landing on his chest and knocking the breath out of him. He opened his eyes and squinted at his little sister. "What time is it?" He asked tiredly, lifting his head and bringing up two hands to hold onto his sister so she wouldn't fall.

Anna looked over at the digital clock on the nightstand. "6:03," she read slowly. "A.M.!"

Dean cringed and sighed, closing his eyes and dropping his head back onto the pillow. He felt his sister crawl towards his head and forced one eye open to stare at her as she leaned down over his face. "What do you want, Runt?" He asked grouchily.

Anna wrinkled her nose in a frown then turned it into a grin. "Did somebody miss their nap?" She asked her brother mischievously. Dean couldn't help but smile and opened both eyes, sitting up suddenly and catching his baby sister, tickling her mercilessly and laughing as the sound of her giggles filled the air.

Maybe it was just the two of them most days now. But they were okay.

_La Fin_


End file.
